Street fights and intelligent discourse on Medium — including by the New York Times — Yahoo! doesn't have much to cheer about, the tech and media outlook for 2016, what journalists want, Twitter apologizes to developers, Facebook is favored by ad executives, YouTube now has a paid option, what makes a 21st century company, Uber gets more cash, Airbnb puts its foot in its mouth, the problem of podcast surplus, content personlization is next, measuring impact rather than size, real quotes, our weekly trivia challenge, the podcast pick of the week, an opportunity for agency owners from our sponsor and more, it's The Week in Digital.

A roundup of relevant links affecting our industry.

Each Monday we publish a newsletter that includes a series of links about current events and trends in the worlds of technology, business, digital communications and marketing in order to keep leaders up to date on changes, newsworthy items and content that might be useful in your job. A new issue is available every Monday morning. Please subscribe to keep up to date on developments.

News items are in regular text; additional commentary has been added in italics.

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Industry

Two contentious sets of arguments happened online last week, and they happened on Medium. [FEATURED TOPIC in this week's video above. You can view it for more in-depth commentary.]

In the first, Amazon's SVP of global corporate affairs Jay Carney refuted the New York Times' report from this summer that indicated Amazon was a horrible place to work. And then, the NYT's executive editor Dean Baquet replied in kind on Medium! Check out Ben Thomson's intelligent analysis here. This is a remarkable occurrence, seeing that Baquet has the Times at his disposal. But it goes to show how taking the fight to the streets is sometimes necessary and even more powerful than traditional media.

In the second, Susan Crawford wrote of her disdain for Uber on Medium in Getting Over Uber. Tim O'Reilly countered on the same platform with Getting Over Taxis. The simple interface, the ability to highlight text (and see what others have highlighted), the ease of sharing and the ability to add commentary all make this a robust and lively community for discourse.

There are disruptive forces affecting the marketing industry identified by the Association of National Advertisers. From the Internet of Things to competition from agile/nimble competitors, the space is heating up. When you add the battling forces of consumer expectations, the advance of new technology and the complexity of the industry, you have a volatile mixture of forces. Ultimately, the role of marketing is expanding. It's a great time to be in marketing.

At last week's MarketingProfs B2B Forum, Avinash Kaushik stressed thinking like humans and not like robots to focus on user intent. His formula is: See. Think. Do. Care.

It should come as no surprise that Facebook gets the highest marks from ad executives for driving ROI, over all other social networks. The targeting is more precise and they know more about their users than anyone else. Used intelligently, Facebook is a powerful brand builder.

This year, nearly 33% of companies with 100 employees or more use Instagram; next year, it will be nearly 49%. By 2017, it will surpass Twitter, according to eMarketer. That is, assuming Twitter doesn't improve.

In their latest "Taking Stock with Teens" report, Piper Jaffray shared that teens' most important social network is Instagram. Of course, it also shows that Facebook hasn't changed in importance since last year, despite all of the "sky is falling" predictions.

As more value comes from intellectual property (and human capital, above), income can be shifted to tax havens.

Crowd Companies recognized businesses that are succeeding in the collaborative economy with its first annual Crowd Companies Awards. Autodesk, BMW, Intuit Swisscom and Whole Foods were among the recipients.

Airbnb found how much revulsion it could create with its passive-aggressive ad campaign. Now that Airbnb is paying its city taxes, it seems that the room-sharing company would like to tell San Francisco how to use that money. In one instance, it directed this at the library system: We hope you use some of the $12 million in hotel taxes to keep the library open later.The new sharing economy tells the old sharing economy how to behave.

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Audio

But NPR is losing younger listeners, leaving it with an older but generous audience. I guess that NPR voice is something of a siren call after all. Maybe NPR needs to switch to vocal fry as its new voice.

Pandora is having some issues. In Q3 it lost $85 million and its stock dropped 30% upon the announcement. With increased competition from Spotify, Deezer and Apple Music, its success isn't as guaranteed as it once seemed.

Podcast Recommendation of the Week. This week, check out Six Pixels of Separation, hosted by marketing whiz Mitch Joel. Each week, Mitch interviews a guest from the business world and asks some of the most insightful and probing questions. Subscribe today. Do you have a podcast recommendation for us? Add yours to our Google Sheet: smonty.co/yourpodcasts

* Answer to the trivia question above:

When You Have the Time: Essential Watching / Listening / Reading

Mitch Joel sat down with Seth Godin to discuss and debate the ongoing ad blocking crisis. As usual, Seth had some important insights to share. Take a listen to this episode of our recommended podcast this week.

Believe me, I know. Whether it's toothpaste, orange juice or yogurt, brand extensions are making for a less-than-ideal consumer experience.

Did you enjoy what you read this week? If so, please consider becoming a patron, which means you can pledge as little as $1 a month — or any amount you wish — to help support this newsletter by going to Patreon. A dollar a month? That's 25¢ for everything you've read above.

Welcome

Scott Monty is a neoclassical digital executive. As a keynote speaker, advisor and recovering Fortune 10 executive, he gives talks to companies and industry organizations about the need to relentlessly focus on the customer. He uses his knowledge of historic literature, philosophy and poetry, together with his ability to trend-spot to show audiences that the key to our future is in understanding timeless wisdom about human nature.